The Age - Completed Treaty "Impossible" By December - Almost Nothing Resolved In Barcelona

[hatrack]

THE chances of a climate change treaty being signed in Copenhagen are fading fast as it emerges that the US legislature is running out of time to agree on targets and that critical issues - including targets for the developed world, financing for the developing world and the agreement's legal language - remain unresolved.

Although British Prime Minister Gordon Brown claimed this month that there was no plan B, the major participants have begun manoeuvring on how to stage-manage failure at Copenhagen and to set a new deadline for a treaty. With just five negotiating days left in Barcelona, those watching the process closely say there are so many important issues unresolved that a completed treaty is now impossible by December.

The executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Yvo De Boer, admitted as much last week. ''We need to have a realistic level of ambition,'' Mr de Boer said. ''We have only five days of negotiations left. To assume you can negotiate a full-fledged treaty in five days is unrealistic.''

The US-based Pew Centre on Climate Change's president, Eileen Claussen, who monitors progress in the US and internationally, said: ''There is only one more week and I think everyone knows, we will not end up with a completed international agreement. Yvo De Boer said it, and I think it's good he did.''

EDIT

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/plan-b-looms-as-hope-for-climate-pact-fades-20091026-hgrf.html

[kestrel91316]

1. Human civilization is fucked. Nobody gives enough of a damn to do

enough to make a difference. I hope the powers that be CHOKE on all the money they are clinging to in vain hopes that they will stay at the top of the heap when the house of cards collapses.

[Birthmark]

2. The next couple of hundred years should be fascinating.

It will be epically tragic, of course, but fascinating. Watching the ecological and social/financial structures begin to crumble, and *how* they crumble will provide decades or centuries of interesting study. The price is horrific, though.

Oh, and for you lovers of capitalism...live it up. Capitalism has less than one hundred years as a dominant financial theory. Possibly just three or four more decades.

[kestrel91316]

3. Heh. Yeah. "The Road"-fascinating........I hope to die before the worst of it.

[Nihil]

5. Seconded.

> I hope the powers that be CHOKE on all the money they are clinging to
> in vain hopes that they will stay at the top of the heap when the house
> of cards collapses.

:grr:

[excess_3]

4. 15th meeting (COP 15), what is so special this time? .nt